The Romanov Cross: A Novel (14 page)

But one question remained in Slater’s head. This had been possibly the most isolated colony on the planet, surrounded by ice floes and rocky coastlines, with no mail, and no intercourse with the locals. It should have been the safest place on earth during the 1918 pandemic. But even here, the Spanish flu had managed to insinuate its deadly tentacles, and he wondered if he would ever find out how. Not for the first time, he felt a flicker of grudging admiration for his terrible foe. Damn, it was wily.

“Those are crabbing boats below,” the pilot observed, as Slater looked down to see their running lights bucking in the choppy seas. “Worst job in the whole world.”

Funny, Slater thought. He had often heard his own job described that way.

S
T
. P
ETERSBURG

December 25, 1916

The Winter Palace was never more beautiful than when it was done up for the Christmas Ball. Anastasia looked forward to it every year—particularly in a year as tragic and bloody as this one had been. Although millions of ill-equipped Russian soldiers were still desperately fighting the Germans along the far-flung borders of the empire, here, tonight, you would never know it. As she gazed down at the vast, snowy forecourt, hundreds of sleek carriages and gleaming motorcars, jingling sleighs and bright red troikas, drew to a halt in front of the massive entry hall of the palace, and the Tsar and Tsaritsa’s guests, decked out in all their finery, disembarked, laughing and chattering among themselves. Even from the window seat in her room, the young grand duchess could catch some of their exchanges—most of them spoken in French as it was so much more fashionable than Russian—and spot some of the more familiar faces; just then, in fact, stepping out of one of the most ornately gilded carriages, drawn by four splendid white horses with golden tassels in their manes and tails, she saw the young Grand Duke Dmitri, her father’s cousin, and
his fast friend, Prince Felix Yussoupov, scion of the richest family in Russia.

Rumor had it that the Yussoupovs were even richer than the imperial family, something that Anastasia found impossible to believe. Who could possibly have more than the Tsar? The very thought struck her as rude, even if Felix himself was among the most charming and sought-after young men in all of St. Petersburg.

For well over an hour, the guests assembled in the grand ballroom until, at eight thirty sharp, the Master of Ceremonies banged an ebony staff three times on the marble floor and announced the presence of their imperial majesties. The mahogany doors, trimmed in gold, were thrown open, and Anastasia and her three sisters followed their father and mother into the immense ballroom, lighted by crystal chandeliers. All around them, men in medal-bedecked uniforms and black tailcoats bowed, while the women in billowing silk gowns curtsied with a fluttering sound that reminded Anastasia of flocks of geese taking flight above a field. Gems of every color and size sparkled at the ladies’ necks and ears and adorned their wrists and fingers. A prima ballerina from the St. Petersburg Ballet wore white shoes with heels and buckles made of pavé diamonds.

The orchestra broke into a polonaise, and while her parents went about greeting the guests—her mother wearing that telltale air of distraction that fell over her whenever her son Alexei was suffering from one of his agonizing bouts—Anastasia blushed fiercely and simply did her best not to trip over the hem of her long white dress. Because of the deformity to her left foot, her shoes were specially made for her by the court cobbler in Moscow, but the polished parquet floor was extremely difficult to navigate, and she dreaded taking a spill with every aristocrat in the land on hand to watch. The Grand Marshal of the Court, Count Paul Benckendorff, took her by the arm and proffered a glass of champagne.

Anastasia quickly looked around and said, “What if Mama were to see?”

“What if she does?” the count said with a laugh. The ends of his
gray moustache stuck out from his face as straight as a pencil. “It’s New Year’s Eve, and you’re fifteen!”

When she still hesitated, he said, “Drink up!” and, laughing along with him now, she did. (In all honesty, she had sipped champagne several times before, but she knew that her mother still did not approve.) “And reserve the chaconne for me,” he added with a wink before moving off to welcome a party from the British Embassy.

While her older sisters danced, Anastasia looked on, making mental notes of everything she saw, the better to tell her brother Alexei the next morning. The Heir Apparent was sequestered in the royal family’s private apartments, recovering from a nosebleed that had begun with nothing more than a sneeze the day before. But because of his disease, the bleeding would not stop, and Dr. Botkin, in consultation with the best surgeons in St. Petersburg, was still debating whether or not to risk cauterizing the burst blood vessel that had caused it. Every doctor, Anastasia knew well, dreaded being the one who might do the Tsarevitch greater, or grave, harm. As a result, they generally chose to do nothing but wait and watch and pray that each crisis would pass.

Rasputin had, of course, been summoned—indeed, he was due at the ball—but, as often occurred, no one had been able to find him yet. Famous as he was, he also led a secretive private life. Anastasia had heard tales about that, too—some of them quite scandalous—but her mother adamantly insisted that the stories were all a pack of lies, made up by political and personal enemies of the man she called, with reverence and affection, Father Grigori.

By now, there must have been close to a thousand people in the ballroom, and scores of servants were circulating on the perimeter of the dance floor with silver trays of caviar and sliced sturgeon, flutes of champagne and glasses of claret. Massive buffet tables, laden with everything from lobster salad to whipped cream and pastry tarts, were set up in the adjoining chambers. But Anastasia was so enraptured by the beauty of the ball that she longed to sweep around the room to the strains of the mazurka or the waltz. She only trusted herself,
however, in the arms of a few, among them the count. When he returned for the chaconne, and wrapped a strong arm around her waist, she knew that he would support her and guide her steps; as they danced she was able to tilt her head back and feel herself briefly transported. The champagne, she thought, was a great help; she should drink it more often. She saw her sisters—Olga and Tatiana and Marie—moving around her, and to her they looked as graceful as swans. Was she forever to feel like the ugly duckling, she wondered—which made it all the more surprising when she saw a hand in a white-leather glove descend upon the count’s shoulder and heard a voice say, “May I intrude?”

The count put his head back, and said, “But I was just hitting my stride, Prince!”

Yussoupov smiled and as the count relinquished his hold, boldly stepped in. Anastasia could hardly believe what was happening. Prince Felix Yussoupov could dance with anyone he liked, anytime he liked. He had dark, wavy hair, and a long, almost feminine face, with dark, soulful eyes. His lashes were longer than any of her own sisters’, and as she looked at them now, closer than she had ever seen them before, she could swear that they had been tinted and curled, and she remembered the gossip she had overheard—that the young prince liked to be seen around town masquerading as a woman, in furs and jewels and silken gowns. She had never known what to make of such tales, especially as he had recently married a celebrated beauty named Irina—who was nowhere in sight at the ball.

As if intuiting her thought, he said, “The Princess Irina’s in the Crimea, at Kokoz.”

No matter how splendid the Yussoupovs’ palace there was—and the accounts of its magnificence were many—Anastasia could not imagine missing the Tsar’s Christmas Ball.

“But I see another guest is missing, too,” he said, as she sailed in his arms across the dance floor. The prince was an even more adept dancer than the count.

“Alexei is asleep,” she said. “He was out hunting all day.” Like the
others in the royal family, she had been tutored to conceal the gravity of her brother’s condition.

The prince nodded and smiled, but she understood now that it wasn’t her brother he had been referring to.

“Oh, do you mean Father Grigori?” she said.

For some reason, Yussoupov seemed to find that funny, and laughed. Even his teeth were perfect—small and even and brilliantly white.

“Yes, of course,
Father Grigori
,” he said, and now she knew he was making fun of her for calling him that. “Our friend Rasputin must be on quite a bender if he’s late to the Winter Palace ball.”

Anastasia was perplexed.

“He’s coming tonight, isn’t he?”

“I should think so,” she replied. But did he think that she oversaw the guest list?

“I ask because you two seem to have a special rapport,
n’est-ce pas
? Whenever we go out drinking together, the good Father Grigori speaks of your family often—but he talks about you more often than all the others combined.”

That he spoke of them at all was shocking to Anastasia, but she couldn’t help but wonder what it was he said about her. She was secretly flattered. Without her having to ask, Yussoupov obliged.

“He seems to think that you carry what he calls a ‘spark of holy fire.’ And if anyone should know about such stuff as that, it’s Rasputin.”

Anastasia was growing dizzy, though she couldn’t tell if it was from the twirling of the dance, the champagne, or the confusion she felt at the strange turns of the conversation. What did Felix Yussoupov want from her?

“Does he ever speak of me?” he asked.

“Not that I can think of. Why would he?”

“We are the best of friends,” he said, with feigned indignation, “that’s why. But he can have a wicked tongue on him, and I’ve just been curious to know if my name ever came up behind the closed doors of the imperial apartments.” His eyes, deep and dark and penetrating,
were staring into hers, and she felt as if a wolf were sizing her up for dinner.

“I think I need to sit down,” she said, suddenly feeling unsteady on her feet.

The prince, without missing a beat, swept her from the floor and onto a gilded divan framed between a pair of floor-length mirrors. Two other ladies quickly moved to make room for their royal addition.

“Forgive me,” the prince said, bowing at the waist with one hand folded behind his back. “I fear my conversation has proved tiresome to Your Royal Highness.” Anastasia still had the sense that he was somehow mocking her. Mocking a grand duchess! “I’m sure our mutual friend will turn up any minute. Wherever the champagne is flowing, Father Grigori cannot be far behind.”

As he retired, the other ladies fluttered their eyes and tried to catch his attention, but to no avail. He was already hailing Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and gesturing toward one of the buffet chambers. And so the ladies set their sights on Anastasia, instead.

“You look very lovely tonight, Your Highness,” one of them gushed, and the other said, “But where has your mother gone to? Her dress was quite beautiful and I was eager to study it more closely.” She leaned closer with a smile and said, “That way I can get a better copy made when I leave for Paris.”

Flattery was something Anastasia, like any member of the royal family, was inured to. Her mother and father had brought her up, as best they could, to ignore it. For an honest opinion, there were family members one could turn to, and certain confidantes and retainers, such as Dr. Botkin, the French tutor Pierre Gilliard, or Anna Demidova, her mother’s maid who had served the Tsaritsa forever and whose loyalty and love were undoubted. And even though Jemmy was just a cocker spaniel, Anastasia knew that the little dog would love her just the same whether she was a grand duchess or a peasant girl. She wished that people could be more like dogs.

A servant offered her another glass of champagne, and with her mother nowhere in sight, she saw no reason not to take it. She was
done dancing for the night—her left foot already ached a bit—and she chatted amiably with the two ladies, both of whom turned out to be the wives of ministers of something or other (ministers came and went so routinely that Anastasia never bothered to get their names straight) and began to wonder at her mother’s absence. The Tsar himself was holding court at one end of the ballroom, but it was beginning to dawn on Anastasia that if her mother had already disappeared—and Father Grigori had not shown up at all—there could only be one reason.

Alexei must have taken a turn for the worse.

Excusing herself, she skirted the dance floor, waved good night to Count Benckendorff, and lifting her long skirt a few inches, scurried down one of the vast galleries lined with towering columns of jasper, marble, and malachite. Some late-arriving guests swiftly stopped to bow and curtsy as she passed, then she was hurrying up the main staircase and down several more corridors, decorated with rich tapestries and gloomy oil portraits, until she reached the family’s private quarters in the East Wing. Comprised of only twenty or thirty rooms, most of them overlooking an enclosed park, this was the Romanovs’ sanctuary, the place where they could live a relatively normal, uninhibited, and unobserved life. The Ethiopian guards silently opened the doors as she approached, and just as silently closed them behind her a moment later.

She was running toward her brother’s rooms when she happened to notice that the door to her mother’s private chapel was ajar. Candlelight flickered from within, and when she peered around the open door, she saw Rasputin standing before the altar, surrounded by votive candles and dozens of holy icons—portraits of the Virgin Mary, or various saints, daubed in gold and silver, on resin wood or bronze. He did not hear her as she entered, so absorbed was he in his prayers, and though she did not wish to startle him, she needed to know if her brother was in danger.

“Father Grigori,” she murmured, and as if he had known she was there all along, he said, without turning, “I have comforted the Tsarevitch, and he will live.”

She waited, relieved—what kind of Christmas would this have been if he had not?—and wondering if she should leave the
starets
to his prayers.